The Internet has become a major source of news and information for very large numbers of people. In particular, millions of Internet users browse the World Wide Web (WWW) to obtain HyperText Markup Language (HTML) documents using the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP). Many people now receive more news and information from the Internet WWW sites than from traditional information sources such as television. The WWW portion of the Internet is an excellent medium for news and information since the WWW Internet sites can provide information to users on-demand. Specifically, Internet users can immediately request the exact information they are interested in when ever they wish from WWW Internet sites.
However, the Internet WWW system news information does suffer from a number of deficiencies. One serious problem is that the limited bandwidth of most Internet connections severely limits the amount of information delivered. Most Internet users access the Internet through a dial-up modem at speeds of 56 kps per second or less. With such limited bandwidth, most Internet based WWW sites only deliver text and static images. When video information delivered through 56 K Internet connections the video information is compressed so heavily such that only small low-resolution video images are delivered at a low frame rate.
To improve upon the performance of the Internet, many telecommunication providers are now offering high-bandwidth connections for the “last mile” to an Internet user's residence. Cable television providers are now offering cable modem Internet service that use cable television wiring to deliver broadband Internet service. Similarly, telephone companies are rolling out Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services that provide broadband Internet service. Although these broadband data connections provide additional bandwidth, such broadband connections only address the “last mile” bandwidth problem associated with sending rich multi-media information across the Internet. Many other problems will continue to exist.
One problem of delivering rich multi-media information across the Internet is that there are no standard quality-of-service guarantees for Internet Protocol data traffic. All Internet Protocol traffic is delivered on a best effort basis such that Internet Protocol packets are often dropped. Due the rapid uncontrolled growth of the Internet, many severe Internet “traffic jams” have occurred at large Internet peering point such as MAE-East and MAE-west. Thus, even if a user has a broadband connection between his residence and his Internet Service Provider (ISP), there is no guarantee that the connection between the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and a desired Internet media server will provide the bandwidth necessary for a rich multimedia stream.
Another problem with attempting to deliver rich multi-media information across the Internet is the point-to-point nature of Internet communication. Most Internet communication occurs in a unicast manner wherein a unique communication connection is established between each information server and each Internet client. Since each Internet client requires its own connection, the bandwidth requirement for serving information grows linearly with the number of Internet clients being served. Furthermore, each Internet client that requests service adds additional load to the server systems that service information. To serve rich multimedia information to a large number of a client systems, a large powerful server farm is required. It is therefore quite expensive from the server end in both communication costs and computer costs to serve large amounts of rich multi-media information.
Due to the above-described problems associated with Internet delivery of multimedia information, the Internet will largely remain a text and static image based information source. It would be desirable to provide a multi-media rich information system that is similar to the Internet in terms of on-demand access of interesting information but without the bandwidth problems associated with the Internet network system.